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We are extremely excited to announce that our first Revit add-in is ready for private beta! Our premiere tool loads the OpenRFA shared parameters in batch and improves the out-of-the-box user interface for a more streamlined workflow allowing users to add multiple parameters in bulk. This addin will be shared with the OpenRFA community - free of charge.

At OpenRFA, we're not only pushing for standardization, we are proposing a new approach to developing standards through open collaboration.

So far, I have yet to see an industry standard (BIM or other) that has been developed through collaboration of an online community. Standards are typically developed by a committee of experts and then released to the industry in which it serves.

Whether they realize it or not, Unifi is actually validating the complexity of working with shared parameters in Revit families. All of the effort that goes into managing shared parameters in families will be eliminated if we all adopt the same master shared parameters for Revit.

After attending Autodesk University in 2016, I noticed a growing trend in the building industry: Cloud applications that encourage collaboration. The ability to share information in a “live” environment online creates a virtual big room, where the entire design and construction team is expected to work together rather than working in disconnected silos at different phases of the project. Working in this fashion allows project information to be instantly passed between multiple firms including architects, engineers, and contractors.

In Revit, shared parameters are unique – each shared parameter has its own Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) assigned at time of creation. This means that just like a person, parameters can have the same name but never the same identity. A shared parameter’s GUID is like its fingerprint and if this fingerprint doesn’t match, Revit will classify the data within this parameter as a separate data set even though the parameters may have the same name.

It has been about a month since OpenRFA.org went live and we already have over 70 users registered. As we continue to improve our web app, we hope that traction increases as users begin to spread the word about the collaborative shared parameters initiative. So, hats off to you, early adopters. Thank you for the support and please continue to spread the word!